The present invention relates to a call centre and to a communications network using such a call centre.
Call centres are widely used by commercial organisations, for the handling of incoming calls and/or for initiating calls to customers. Typically, a call centre will have a large number of lines associated with a single number. Calls are received from customers and held in a queue before being directed to the next available agent. Prior to being placed in the queue the customer may indicate, e.g. using DTMF tones, the type of call they are making, and they may be placed in a queue for a specific group of agents depending on the type of call.
It has been recognised that the World Wide Web provides a means for enhancing communication between customers and a call centre. It has been proposed to enable customers to initiate a call from a call centre via a web page. For example, WO97/50235 discloses a system in which a customer enters their phone number on a form in an HTTP page, and then clicks on a xe2x80x9csubmitxe2x80x9d button to request a call from the call centre.
According to a first aspect of the present invention there is provided a method of operating a communications system comprising a call centre and a plurality of customer terminals connected via a communications network to the call centre, characterised in that at least part of a process of automatic call distribution (ACD) is carried out at a customer terminal.
The term xe2x80x9ccall centrexe2x80x9d as used herein encompasses, as well as conventional PSTN call centres, call centres which distribute calls using data protocols such as H323, and hybrid centres handling both PSTN, Voice over IP and data calls.
The present invention provides a method of operating a call centre which significantly increases the efficiency of use of the capacity of the call centre and of the associated network. This is achieved by shifting at least part of the process of automatic call distribution, that is the process whereby a call is assigned to a particular one of the agents, from the call centre to the customer terminal. Then instead of lines being tied up with queuing customers, the setting up of a call may be delayed until an agent is available.
Preferably the method comprises
a) communicating ACD (automatic call distribution) data to a customer terminal;
b) using the ACD data selecting at the customer terminal an agent group; and
c) subsequently establishing a call from a customer terminal via the call centre to an agent in the group selected in step (b).
Automatic call distribution data is data which identifies, explicitly or implicitly, different groups of call agents, and which in a conventional call centre is processed at the call centre to allocate the next free agent in a selected group. In the present invention, this data is used instead at the customer terminal, so that an agent group, and preferably a specific agent, can be selected prior to the terminal establishing an in-band connection with the call centre.
Preferably the result of the selection made at the customer terminal in step (b) is communicated to the call centre via the communications network. Preferably the communications network is a data network supporting a packet-based internetworking protocol. In the embodiments described below, the data network is the Internet. Preferably the call established in step (c) is also established via the said data network. Alternatively, the call may be established via another network, such as the PSTN (public switched telephony network).
Preferably, step (c) is carried out only when the respective agent is free. Preferably the method includes running a call processing application at the customer terminal and communicating control data for the call processing application from the call centre to the customer terminal.
Preferably the call established in step (c) is set up from the call centre to the customer terminal. Preferably a client application running on the customer terminal returns a network address of the customer terminal on the data network to the call centre, and the call centre establishes a call via the data network to the said address.
The inventors have found it to be particularly advantageous to have calls set up via, e.g., the Internet, from the call centre to the customer terminal, using e.g. the IP address of the customer terminal. The network address will in general be known to any client application running on the customer terminal, and can therefore be made available to the call centre without requiring intervention by the customer. Moreover, functioning in this manner obviates the need for direct interaction between, e.g., a Java ACD applet on the customer terminal and an internet telephony application on the customer terminal, thereby eliminating interworking problems between these applications.
Preferably the method includes setting up a call between the customer terminal and an agent, storing data identifying the said agent, and automatically directing a subsequent call from the customer terminal to the said agent identified in the said stored data.
This preferred feature of the invention makes it possible to overcome the impersonality experienced by the customer when using a conventional call centre. Whereas conventionally if a customer rings a call centre with an enquiry, and then rings back a short time later, they will be connected to a different agent on each occasion, using the present invention is possible to ensure that when they ring back they are connected to the same agent. This is done by storing data recording the identity of the agent who takes the initial call. This is advantageously done using a cookie, that is a data item in a defined format stored on the customer terminal. This cookie is then automatically returned to the call centre when the customer subsequently accesses the call centre web page.
According to a second aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method of operating a communications system comprising a call centre and a plurality of customer terminals connected via a communications network to the call centre, in which automatic call distribution is carried out before a call is setup.
The present invention also encompasses call centres or customer terminals adapted to operate in accordance with the method of the first aspect.